CAREER: The Role of Advanced Simulation Technologies in Innovation Processes

这组研究将通过比较三个不同学科的科学家、工程师、经理和政策制定者的工作，来检验先进的、基于计算机的模拟在管理和政策制定中的作用：汽车工程、大气研究和城市规划。研究表明，如果计算机模拟的输出看起来与它们所代表的物理系统在视觉上具有很高的保真度，非专业用户可能会相信模拟能做出准确的预测。该项目将审查技术用户和非技术用户在搜索、生成和说服决策阶段使用模拟证据的情况。该项目将采用人种学方法来确定和评估对模拟产品的表述和理解、接受和使用的模式以及组织的正式和非正式影响结构中的相关变化。这些研究的结果将使管理者和政策制定者深入了解新的模拟技术对决策制定以及与决策相关的组织结构产生的后果。通过提高我们对模拟模型如何成为有说服力的交流工具的理解，这项研究的结果还将为政策制定者提供适当的问题，以确定模拟模型背后的假设，并使他们对模拟何时以及如何具有误导性或帮助有更一般的理解。

This set of studies will examine the role of advanced, computer-based simulations in managerial and policy-making decisions by comparing the work of scientists, engineers, managers and policymakers in three different disciplines: automotive engineering, atmospheric research, and urban planning. Research suggests that if the outputs of computer simulations appear to have high visual fidelity with the physical systems they represent, lay users are likely to believe that simulations make accurate predictions. This project will examine the use of simulation-based evidence by both technical and non-technical users during the search, generation and persuasion phases of decisions. The project will employ ethnographic methods to identify and assess representations and understandings of simulation products, patterns in acceptance and use, and associated changes in organizations' formal and informal influence structures. The results from these studies will give managers and policy makers insight into the consequences that new simulation technologies have for decision-making and, by association, decision-related organizational structures. By improving our understanding of how simulation models become persuasive communication devices, the results of this study will also provide policymakers with the appropriate questions to ask to determine the assumptions underlying simulation models and will give them a more general understanding of when and how simulations can be misleading or helpful.